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Communication theory & its
relevance to new media
Senders and Receivers
week 3
MS1304
senders
receivers
Senders and Receivers: an overview
of communication science
Aims of this lecture
• To look at
communication
models and their
relevance to new
media
• To look at
communication as a
subject of academic
study
• To consider how
theories of
communication
inform notions of
– Senders/Receivers
– Technical context
– Social and cultural
context
– Power
– Design
Watch Video
Monty Python – Sermon on the Mount
• What is happening in terms of
communication?
• http://www.thetop100.net/the-entertainmentzone/monty-python-sketches/sermon-on-themount/list/z26l51i2330.aspx
Lecture Question
How can new media change the
relationship between senders
and receivers?
The Lecture
Simple model of communication
The Lecture
message
Sender
Receiver(s)
Speaker
Audience
The One
The Many
Transformation
Packet Switching
The rapid transmission of small blocks of data over a channel dedicated to the
connection only for the duration of one packet's transmission. Each packet can
take a different path from sender to receiver (Paul Baran, 1964).
The New Media Lecture?
Network Communication
new kind of intelligence?
Pierre Levy’s Collective
Intelligence
• 1998 pp. 140-141
• Its effect on communities and
social processes of sharing
knowledge
• Transformation…
• Charts the role of
information &
communication
technology
– ONE-TO-MANY
– MANY-TO- MANY
Interactive media as a transformation in
communication
• one-to-many
Linear movement of message
from sender to passive
receiver
• many-to-many
Non-linear movement between
responsive sender(s) and
receivers
Levy’s transformation…
• one-to-many
– Separation between
sender and receivers
• many-to many
– We all have potential
to be senders and
receivers
Echoes…Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding
Media (1964)
Global Village Thesis
• We are
‘nomadic gatherers of
knowledge…nomadic as
ever before, free from
fragmentary specialism…
involved in the total social
process as never before;
since with electricity we
extend our central
[nervous] system globally,
instantly interrelating
every human experience.’
See McLuhan on Automationp.358
Power
• Both McLuhan (1964) and
Levy (1998) infer that a…
• In the communication
process, power belongs to
those who send messages
and to whom no return
can be made
•
Baudrillard, J. (1988). Selected Writings. Ed. M.
Poster. Tr. J. Benedict. Oxford: Polity Press.
• ‘transformation’ in
communication
empowers us
• Communication process is
democratised…???
Communication as a subject of
academic study
Origins of the word
(etymology)
• Communication comes from the Latin
communis, "common."
• establish a "commonness" with someone
• share information, an idea or an attitude
Human need to communicate
• Dimbleby and
Burton (1994)
identify reasons
why we need to
communicate…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Power
Survival
Co-operation
Personal needs
Relationships
Persuasion
Social needs
Economic
Information
Making sense of the world
Decision making
Self expression
McQuail 0n
communication
and meaning
'consider it as
the sending
from one
person to
another of
meaningful
messages'. Denis
Society
Wide
Mass
Media
Institutional and Organisational
political and business
McQuail (1975)
Intergroup association-local
community
Intragroup: family
Interpersonal: dyad-couple
Intrapersonal: processing information
Levels of Communication
• Intrapersonal
Communications
– Self image
– Self Esteem
– Perception
• Interpersonal
Communication
– Social roles
– Non-verbal
communication
– Language and meaning
– Institutional
• Group
Communication
– Group norms
– Formal and
informal groups
• Mass
Communication
– The development of
mass communication
– Media analysis
– Semiotics
– Violence in the media
– Advertising
Models of Communication
–Aristotle - rhetoric
–Lasswell - effects
– Wiener Feedback – anti-aircraft detection
–Shannon and Weaver – mathematical model
–Schramm – adaptation of S&W
–Hall - adaptation of S&W (with meaning)
–Interactivity – the new media
models of communication
• 2, 300 years ago
Aristotle's model of
human
communication
• Rhetoric
• Study of oral
communication
subject
speaker
person addressed
1900s
Lasswell and Mass Media Research
Harold Lasswell (1948). "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society." In Lyman
Bryson (ed.), The Communication of Ideas. Harper and Row.
The Shannon-Weaver Model (1948)
NOICE
Shannon
error checking & noise
• Concerned with the
transmission of
messages over noisy
analogue channels…
• Noise increases over
distance
• Analogue solution =
Amplifiers
Shannon
error checking & noise
• Shannon took a new
approach
technical error checking & noise
Shannon’s formula
established that,
despite high levels of
channel noise, any
message could be
encoded at the source
so that it is received
‘error free’ at its
destination
• Established information theory
• Use of binary system (1 & 0) in
the coding of information
Shannon’s communication
complicates issue of meaning
• Technically messages are
not measured in terms of
meaning
• Information measured in
amount of possible
messages
• Certainty (order)
• Uncertainty (disorder)
• In Shannon's formula
• Meaning and information
are opposites
• More new information
means less meaning
Contemporary communication is
problematic
“We live in a world
where there is
more and more
information, and
less and less
meaning.”
(Baudrillard,1994 p. 79)
senders and receivers must use similar systems
Or else information is without meaning…
The Shannon-Weaver Model
updated by Schramm (1965) communication includes five
elements
Shannon’s model adapted for the study of mass
human communication…
The Encoder
• Source expresses
purpose in the form of
a message
• Message formulated
in code
• This requires an
encoder
The Encoder
• When you
communicate, you
have a particular
purpose in mind
• you want to sell
something
• you want to provide
information
• you want to convince
somebody
• you want to persuade
The Decoder
• The source needs • Introduces
an encoder to
coding dilemmas
translate
• The receiver
needs a decoder
to retranslate
Hall on Code and How to Read
Television, 1980
Hall, 1980
• Dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the
text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading
• Negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and
broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists
and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position,
experiences and interests
• Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose
social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to
the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does
not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to
bear an alternative frame of reference
See Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginners
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html
Feedback (back to 1940s)
Weiner, 1948
Cybernetics
the study of control and
communication in animals
and machines…
Homeostasis
Feedback Loop
information about the result
of a transformation or an
action is sent back to the
input of the system in the
form of input data
Results in stability
Evolving communication models feedback
Osgood and Schramm 1954
Examples of social feedback
• Telephone feedback
– 'mmmm’
– 'aaah’
– 'yes, I see'
• face-to-face NVC
communication
feedback
–
–
–
–
head nods
smiles
frowns
changes in posture and
orientation
– gaze
feedback
We are but
whirlpools in a river
of ever-flowing
water
(Norbert Weiner, 1948 p. 96)
We are little
switchboard
centres handling
and rerouting the
great endless
current of
information....
Schramm W. (1954) quoted in McQuail & Windahl
(1981)
How important is feedback to new media
communication?
Computer game scores reduce if
sound is turned off
Question
• Is feedback the same as interaction?
Feedback versus Interaction
Thacker and Galloway 2007 pp. 122-124
Evolution in two-way
communication
Two models
1. Feedback
2. Interaction
Interactivity about freedom?
• New media supposed to
equate to new freedoms (???)
• Technologies of control on the
wane – more communication,
more democratic (???)
• Not so say Galloway and
Thacker (2007)
• Networked model of control
• More communication means
more control
• More monitoring, surveillance,
and biometics
The lecture
The main issues from the lecture
– Why study communication?
– How effective/relevant are models of communication?
- consider areas of significance in new media
– What is the relevance of the Shannon and Weaver
model
– How have models changed – linearity, feedback and
interactivity
– What role does technology play in (re)shaping the
communication process?
– Freedom or control?
Seminar
• Evaluating a published article
– Reading critically